Paavo Berglund's concert with the Russian National Orchestra could not have been more conventional: a pairing of Tchaikovsky's ever-popular Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. Yet Berglund's Tchaikovsky was anything but traditional. We are used to hearing these pieces as the apogee of romantic self-indulgence. By contrast, Berglund's restrained style and refusal to impose himself upon the music created classical, almost abstract, performances.
His approach was best suited to the Fifth Symphony. The slow movement flowed as an enormous wave, from the opening horn solo to the searing intensity of the final climax. He solved the structural problems of the finale with brisk, focused energy and revealed the depths of the RNO's sound. The whole piece seemed impressively purposeful and symphonic.
But there is another side to these pieces, which Berglund's style could not illuminate. The Fourth Symphony is full of dramatic contrasts and weird structural ideas. By smoothing over these changes of expression, he in fact made the piece sound less coherent, playing it literally and transparently but failing to convey Tchaikovsky's most significant achievement as a symphonist: the music's extraordinary dramatic narrative. The slow movement was weirdly disembodied, as he performed the voluptuous main theme with neutral detachment. But at least this unfamiliar clarity - and the energy and brilliance of the Russian players - gave a special insight into Tchaikovsky's orchestration.
